You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview • Hacker News Board

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#281

Post by weberc2 » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:38 AM UTC

pj_mukh wrote: post #94

balls187 wrote: post #36

Indians of Asian descent are a minority in the US, but well represented in Software Engineering. Further, there are plenty more Indian, Chinese, and Russian female engineers, than there are American (of european, aka White) female engineers. I am less inclined to believe there is systemic bias against women, and minorities, and instead a culture difference between groups who are well represented in engineering, and g…

That's because Indian (particularly) men consider engineering to be a safe choice (source: am Indian). Anecdotally, speaking to women (esp American), they find engineering to be categorically unsafe from a career progress perspective. You may not 'see' the bias, but they definitely feel it. The effect is measurable. I am no expert, maybe it has something to do with maternity leave regimes or the interviews (like OP m…

Google offers 18 weeks of maternity leave, and (according to the article at least) they still aren't doing any better than the industry as a whole. I also wonder how much of this perception is the result of a society that tells some groups that everyone is out to get them. Related: https://www.reddit.com/r/TiADiscussion/comments/5arevk/new_t...

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#282

Post by mrkurt » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:44 AM UTC

aries1980 wrote: post #194

mrkurt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The individuals probably are acting on a moral belief, but an organization can't do things out of the goodness of its heart.

> but an organization can't do things out of the goodness of its heart. Why not?

Because orgs are amoral.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#283

Post by exstudent2 » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:45 AM UTC

acdha wrote: post #274

exstudent2 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not been my experience at all. I've generally seen good people get ahead. Sure everyone has personal setbacks but en mass it's definitely not an issue.

Do you see anything incongruous in the way you are comfortable casually rejecting InclinedPlane's experience but using your personal experience to conclude that it's not a widespread problem?

Why is their experience more valid than mine? I'll go with my own observations before that of an HN commenter. Yes, I know that's what I am too.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#284

Post by mrkurt » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:46 AM UTC

tuxidomasx wrote: post #129

I think the conversation about diversity in tech often overlooks a key metric, which is the percentage of tech companies that are founded by and/or employ a majority of minorities. For example, if its accurate to say that over 88% of US tech companies are founded by white people and employ mostly white people, then a diversity issue exists in the number of tech companies founded by black people and employing mostly b…

The people who can work towards diversified hiring aren't the same people who can work towards diversified founding teams. They're both necessary, I think.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#285

Post by weberc2 » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:46 AM UTC

douche wrote: post #263

weberc2 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't characteristic of U.S. factories; the costs associated with workplace injury are so high that employers are obsessed with near misses (i.e., non-injuries) and ergonomics (lever too high? We'll lower it. Reaching across your chest? We'll change your work station. Standing on concrete too long? We'll install ergonomic floor mats.). These companies employ men through their 60s. Women certainly can (and do!) w…

That's kind of moving the goal-posts; we were discussing construction, which, at least in my experience, has a lot less OSHA oversight. Probably it is different in more unionized sectors as well; my experience is decidedly not - smaller logging, construction and power generation companies, where you often don't have the equipment to really do things correctly, for whatever reason, but it has to get done, and so brute…

> Those other blue-collar traditionally masculine jobs have a hard dependency on brute strength that most women can't satisfy.

We were discussing construction in the broader context of blue-collar, masculine jobs. But it doesn't matter really, because if these physically-permissive jobs are still disproportionately male, then there is no reason to believe that the physical demands of construction are what keep women away.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#286

Post by weberc2 » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:48 AM UTC

ryanx435 wrote: post #279

douche wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of moving the goal-posts; we were discussing construction, which, at least in my experience, has a lot less OSHA oversight. Probably it is different in more unionized sectors as well; my experience is decidedly not - smaller logging, construction and power generation companies, where you often don't have the equipment to really do things correctly, for whatever reason, but it has to get done, and so brute…

> we were discussing construction, which, at least in my experience, has a lot less OSHA oversight ok. obviously you have never worked construction. https://www.osha.gov/doc/index.html

Presumably he meant enforcement, and he was likely thinking more about residential construction.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#287

Post by crimsonalucard » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:52 AM UTC

Article implies that the pipeline isn't the main problem. However flawed interviewing is lack of diversity in tech is 99% a pipeline problem. It's really easy to see why.

All you need to do is look at the number of minorities with Tech degrees. Boom problem solved.

(Keep in mind that tech encompasses many things and is not exclusively localized to the software world. While in software many people can get a job without a degree, in general, all tech jobs require a degree. )

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#288

Post by Pyxl101 » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:53 AM UTC

throwaway729 wrote: post #265

flukus wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we have a moral imperative to eliminate unfair and discriminatory barriers to entry because its the right thing to do. First you have to demonstrate that those barriers exist.

From the article: "After drawing on data from thousands of technical interviews, it’s become clear to us that technical interviewing is a process whose results are nondeterministic and often arbitrary. We believe that technical interviewing is a broken process for everyone but that the flaws within the system hit underrepresented groups the hardest… because they haven’t had the chance to internalize just how much of…

I have not read the entire article, but claiming that the process is nondeterministic is not the same as claiming that the process is discriminating unfairly by gender.

If everyone plays the lottery, then some people will win randomly. Certainly if a hiring causes people to "win randomly", then it's not a good hiring process -- but neither is it a process that discriminates on gender. The article goes on to explain that, although people's interview performance is subject to variance from interview to interview, it does seem that interview performance is clustered around a person's average.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#289

Post by h4nkoslo » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:54 AM UTC

What indicates "diversity in tech" is broken? Are there notable examples of wildly successful companies that credibly attribute their success to "diversity", in the same way they attribute it to low overhead, technological innovation, economies of scale, etc?

There have been historical examples of companies that became successful by tapping into cheaper sources of labor (notably in the agricultural sector). Is this what is meant by "diversity"?

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#290

Post by inimino » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 3:55 AM UTC

avasylev wrote: post #273

inimino wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point suggests these questions have some value for you in identifying people's skills. Fair enough. Your second argument admits that this is basically a hazing ritual. Of course you will have to learn some things you don't intrinsically care about in the course of your work. The difference is, that isn't part of a process that we intentionally designed to be that way. Admitting that your hiring process req…

You can't make conclusion just from second argument alone. It's not hazing ritual because my first point. But I also think knowing them is useful, but I see a lot of people arguing it not needed at all. So what I tried to say in second, that regardless of what one thinks on usefulness of Algo knowledge,there's no excuse to ignore algorithm and expect to pass interviews.

If you think it's not necessary for the job but it's necessary for the interview, then at least we can agree the interview process isn't so great.

Of course, knowing how to play the system is part of getting a job, but we can still point out that the system is broken. After all, these are systems we set up ourselves.